


mirror forever

by vigorous



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, M/M, Reconciliation, forgiveness is scary, watch moonlight pls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28633131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigorous/pseuds/vigorous
Summary: To see and be seen.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio & Oikawa Tooru, Kageyama Tobio/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 29
Kudos: 128





	mirror forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pipebomb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipebomb/gifts).



> hi weez, consider this a gift and an apology bcs u have to deal with me :) ily  
> title comes from weyes blood's song "mirror forever" which is also part of the [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Ob6IbQhJyNrjivzgwNzQY?si=ocGGm4-tR_WMkElbob04kg%22)

To see things through to the end is not always possible, sometimes, things just fall off the ledge and the only thing one is able to do is just look onwards as they fall to their doom. Tobio learnt to live with the parts of life that he has no control over. Death and loss and people. There are many times when he’d wanted to chase down the line as everything slipped beyond reach and fell towards a fate written in blood red — an impending doom that he couldn’t control.

When Tobio picked up his phone and accepted the call, he had no idea that this was a chance to hold on, a chance to rewrite fate. 

“Hello?” The voice on the other end of the phone is familiar, Tobio could tell at least that much. It’s familiar in the way an actor’s voice is. Heard in other worlds, in interviews, but never this close. Never to his ear, at 2A.M. 

“Tobio-chan?” 

Tobio sat up on his bed, back impossibly straight, eyes wide open as he stared at the wall. He couldn’t even reply. It felt like he was pushed into a river in the middle of winter. He sounded different. Nothing like fifteen year-old Oikawa Tooru with venom running through his veins, nothing like eighteen year-old Oikawa Tooru with pride rising out of him in waves.

“Yes,” Tobio said, voice smaller than it’s been in a while. There has to be a law somewhere that makes it illegal for the one person you’ve wanted to hear from for years to call you in the middle of the night just hours after you came back from the Rio Olympics. 

“That’s a relief I thought Shouyou gave me the number of some other stoic dude. This is Oikawa, if you haven’t figured it out.” 

“I did. Figure it out, I mean.” 

Oikawa laughed. “Thank God. I was ready to go on a rant about how you became an Olympian and forgot about your senpai.” Tobio tried hard to not think about how kind he sounded. How unlike the boy he knew before. It made sense that his edges would soften with age. Tobio understood that only because he’d gone through the same thing.

“You say that like I’m still not chasing after you.” He didn’t know why he said it and if the silence on the other end was any indication, neither did Oikawa.

“It’s okay, Tobio, you don’t have to pity me for not making it to this year’s Olympics. I’ll see you in 2020, mark my words,” Oikawa replied moments later. He sounded hurt by the assumption that he was being pitied. As if Tobio was stupid enough to feel sorry for someone like him. 

“If that sounded like pity to you, I really don’t know what to tell you.” 

_There. I’m older too. I’m changed as well._

Oikawa laughed again and Tobio felt his toes dig into the carpet beneath his feet. The world felt so small, and for a second he wondered if Oikawa felt like that too. If he felt like the water was rising to his ears, slowly filling his lungs. He wondered what would’ve happened if they had been looking into each other’s eyes as they had this conversation. He wondered if the world would split open to prevent them from crossing into each other’s space. If they were always meant to be in each other’s periphery, doomed ‘til eternity to exchange glances only when it suited the universe’s plans. Only to further some agenda Tobio had no control over.

“Damn, you grew smarter, too,” said so softly that Tobio thought he dreamt it. He felt himself press the phone closer to his ear. “I called you to apologize, by the way.” 

Oh, his lungs filled to the brim with water and his voice was low when he asked, “What for?”

“Middle school. High school. I don’t know. I’m sorry for not being kinder to you.” 

Dread made its climb up Tobio’s throat, constricting his breathing. He stood up, eyes still fixed on the wall. _Why now? Is it because you think I’m winning now? Do you think I have the upper hand?_ Dread whispered to him, told him that this was going to end badly. Suddenly, Tobio was met with the cold reminder that he doesn’t know Oikawa Tooru. He’s never gotten permission to do so. He didn’t know him like Iwaizumi, not like Kindaichi and Kunimi, not even like Shouyou. For all he knew, Oikawa Tooru is a dream he conjured up as a twelve year-old that kept revisiting him but never for long. He just showed up and painted Tobio various shades of red and then disappeared into the night. He’s never stayed long enough for Tobio to learn him. 

How was Tobio supposed to deal with this? How was he supposed to understand someone who built walls with his bare hands to keep him out? How was he supposed to see and be seen?

“I don’t want your apology. Don’t bother.”

He sounded mean, like a nervous dog. He hoped his words stung, he hoped they felt like rejection. Why was he supposed to let Oikawa be the bigger person? That was never how they worked, anyway.

“I didn’t know that,” he breathed out. Tobio heard him clear his throat and then the sound of something being knocked over. “I don’t know much, do I?”

Tobio wondered what his face looked like right now. Where was he? Was someone with him? Was his head swaying a bit too? What did he smell like? Did he miss Tobio? Can you even miss someone you’ve refused to get to know?

Forgiveness is a knife and Tobio held it in his palm, hand wrapped tightly around the hilt. He pressed it to Oikawa’s neck, a warning and a promise all in one. And if he managed to draw blood? All the better. It’s all for the better if Tobio got to win for once. There was a knife against his own throat too, they both wielded the same weapons after all. The same scars adorned their faces. They were mirror images, cursed forever by the fact that they’ll only get to see each other in reverse. 

Tobio doesn’t know if Oikawa needs the knife of forgiveness in him, he doesn’t know much either. He threw things at the wall, hoping he sounded as smart as Miwa, when she reads people like an open book. Like Shouyou, hand on his chin comically as he laid out a person’s character (and then some) to them. As he smiled and said, _This is you. Did you know?_ Sometimes kind and sometimes not, depending on what the situation demanded.

Tobio spoke around the lump in his throat, “I think you just want to be forgiven.”

Oikawa sighed into the speaker and voice airy, said, “Perhaps. I just need you to know why I was harsh. Why I left you out.” 

Tobio was quiet, somehow knowing that Oikawa had more to say. 

“I was scared of you, of your genius, your talent, your hunger. Sometimes, I’d look into your eyes and see myself reflected in them. But you were kinder, and your love for volleyball, it seemed to overpower everything else. I was scared that you loved volleyball more than I did.” 

Genuine. It was so genuine, Tobio had to sit back down on his bed. He again pressed the phone harder against his ear. Oikawa was choosing to lean into Tobio’s knife, all the blood ignored. The world swayed, and Tobio looked down to see his hands were shaking. 

_To see and be seen._

“I’m not a genius.” It’s all he could manage to say. All he could manage because how do you tell someone that you forgive them when you’ve never held anything against them? How do you tell them that a part of you has always known all this, that your grandfather held your hand and told you that they were your rival? That their actions made sense because you would’ve done the same?

This knife in his hand is all for show, because Kageyama Tobio never held anything against Oikawa Tooru. Forgiveness is a knife is a weapon is a jewel. Forgiveness is a jewel Tobio placed around Oikawa’s neck. It’s been there all along, Oikawa just had to look to see it. 

“I know that now, Tobio. I know it now. I finally understand. I don’t know if what I want is your forgiveness but it felt nice to tell you all this.” 

“I do, too. I understand. That’s why I never wanted an apology.” 

They both laughed, like they were long lost friends reconnecting over a coffee in a city that was foreign to them both. Tobio felt a jewel around his neck, proof that Oikawa had forgiven himself and by extension, Tobio. 

“Goodnight, Tobio. I’ll see you around.” 

Tobio hummed, and the line went dead. He held his phone against his forehead. “I’ll see you around,” he repeated to the darkness of the room. He willed his brain not to latch onto the fact that _Tobio_ was said sweetly, no malice behind it. That _I’ll see you around_ is said like a promise. Small smile on his face, jewel on his neck shining as it caught the moonlight, he tried to go to sleep but to no avail.

\

**Author's Note:**

> this is inspired by the phone call scene from moonlight (2016), you can watch the scene [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvO_nfC40jc)


End file.
